The US dispatched four navy warships as well as a reconnaissance airplane after multiple Chinese and Russian military vessels carried out a joint naval patrol near Alaska last week. The combined naval patrol, which the Wall Street Journal first reported, appeared to be the largest such flotilla to approach US territory, according to experts that spoke to the outlet. “It’s a historical first,” Brent Sadler, a retired Navy captain and senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told the Journal. He also said the flotilla’s proximity to Alaska was a…
Tag: Alaska
Inside the Hunt for U.F.O.s at the End of the World
DEADHORSE, Alaska — Really? That’s it? The United States military is capable of many things, but finding the remnants of an unidentified flying object scattered across a blinding expanse of Arctic ice in minus-30-degree weather using six available hours of daylight is not one of them. The search for a downed U.F.O. began and ended near this oil-camp town at the frozen edge of the world, where Navy pilots flying P-8 Poseidons finally gave up on Friday, ending their mission with no answers. Hours later and some 500 miles away,…
How Questions Over a Spy Balloon and U.F.O.s Fed a Crisis Between the U.S. and China
Other murky actions have challenged U.S. analysts trying to read Chinese intentions. On Jan. 28, when the balloon approached the Aleutian Islands and American airspace over Alaska in its off-course trajectory, the balloon’s self-destruct function did not activate, U.S. officials said. Chinese operators may not have wanted to destroy the balloon; it is also possible that they attempted to trigger the self-destruct mechanism and it failed. The Chinese Spy Balloon Showdown The discovery of a Chinese surveillance balloon floating over the United States has added to the rising tensions between…
After Shooting Down Flying Objects, U.S. and Canada Have More Theories Than Answers
WASHINGTON — If the truth is out there, it certainly is not apparent yet. Pentagon and intelligence officials are trying to make sense of three unidentified flying objects over Alaska, Canada and Michigan that U.S. fighter jets shot down with missiles on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The latest turn in the aerial show taking place in the skies above North America comes after a helter-skelter weekend involving what at times seemed like an invasion of unidentified flying objects. The latest object had first been spotted on Saturday over Montana, initially sparking debate…
Schumer says Chinese ‘humiliated’ after three flying objects shot down
US and Canadian military are continuing to search by sea and land amid hostile weather conditions in a scramble to recover portions of three flying objects shot down over North American airspace in the past week. The Democratic majority leader of the US Senate, Chuck Schumer, told ABC’s This Week on Sunday that officials were now convinced that all three of the flying objects brought down by air-to-air missiles this week were balloons. He put the finger of blame firmly on China. “The Chinese were humiliated – I think the…
U.S. Jet Shoots Down Another Unidentified Object Over Canada
WASHINGTON — An American fighter jet, acting on the orders of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, shot down another unidentified flying object on Saturday, Canadian and American officials said, in the latest twist of the ongoing drama playing out over the skies of North America. “I ordered the take down of an unidentified object that violated Canadian airspace,” Mr. Trudeau said in a statement he posted on Twitter. He said an American F-22 with the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which is operated jointly by the United States and Canada,…